The Prune Song

You’ve probably heard a lot of loose talk these days about disinterring the remains of Frank Crumit and extracting his DNA to produce a clone in order to record new versions of songs he originally committed to wax in the days of acoustic recording and so enhance the audio quality of those renditions. I want to join the growing groundswell of opposition by stating clearly my belief that this is a terrible, terrible idea. The limited sonic spectrum and dynamic range as well as the surface noise and scratches and pops are part of the charm of these vintage recordings.